guitar hard left, bass hard right

[junkyardearl]

I'm mixing some recordings I did on a four track with a band I was in a few years ago. There is only one track of bass, and one of guitar. I've been listening to a recording like this that sounds pretty good with the guitar and bass panned hard in each direction. Is this wise? Any thoughts?

~james

[Queue]

As a general rule of thumb, Bass is Centered.

-but-

Break some rules!!!


Queue

[gezzegas]

beatles did that in the 60:s

[Henrik]

I agree, if it sounds good it is good. (Isn't that the Joe Meek payoff?). It could be wise to double check the mix in mono though.

It will sure as hell make your mix stand out compared to other stuff. And get a copy of Beatles' Revolver, it will remove all your fears of experimenting ... plus there are some great songs on it.

[Henrik]

Oh, I forgot:

I heard Björk had the idea for each song on Homogenic to make a tecnho arrangement in one speaker and a string quartet arrangement in the other speaker, and then place the vocals in the center. So the listener could choose which version they liked best, or get both at the same time. I don't know why she ended up not doing it, but I really like the idea.

[SPINSTERWUN]

Go for it, whatever sounds best to you. don't be scared to "break the rules". That is how you stand out from the rest of the pack.

[CMiller]

Go listen to the first Van Halen album...it's pretty much what you described. Personally I find it annoying, but that's just me.

[junkyardearl]

I just really liked the idea of doing it that way, because I have 1 track of vocals, 1 track or guitar, 1 track of bass and 1 track of drums. I didn't really think it was a good idea to take the voice or drums off center, so I went for the guitar and bass. It really seemed to open up the sound of the recording a lot, and make it a little more finished. I'm going back to give it a listen soon, so then I'll see what I really think, "the morning after." It would be fun to do a better job on the songs, but there's no way to ever get that group of people in the room ever again.
~james

[Dom Franco]

Run your four tracks out to another mixer with aux sends.

Pan the dry guitar track left and send a "WET" guitar signal with delay or chorus to the right channel.

Repeat the above process for drums (Reverb left, dry drums right)

Put the bass track through a stereo flanger and return in stereo

You get the idea... save your best stereo delay for the vocal.

You can create virtual stereo by this method, and it will sound very cool!

Dom Franco

[bluelonestar]

i had a very experienced engineer once teach me that you never leave any of your tracks at 12 o'clock. he said b/c then youre just being an asshole. and i've lived by that since he told me b/c he was very good at what he did....im not saying you should pan it hard right but one of my mixes had a kick drum centered and the bass guitar centered...he switched it into mono and then I understood what he was talking about...his mix(having those two tracks panned) blew mine out of the water.
-bluelonestar

[Gidge]

I never cared for hard panning with a 4 track....Id stay mono or do slight panning .....

But Dom's idea is intriguing...what other gear do you have access to besides the 4 track (mixers, processors, etc.)?.....

[junkyardearl]

I'm just running the four track (Yahama MT-100) through an old Tascam M-30 mixer. I'm taking the singnal from that onto a friends computer, which just has a Sound Blaster Live. I'm recording it all on there with cool edit. So really I don't have much in the way of options past things that effect the whole mix. I did a mix and then used one of the Cool Edit fliters to fatten up the bass sound on the right channel (the on the bass guitar is on) and then compressed the whole thing a little bit, which I guess is really more on the matering side than mixing. This sounded pretty good. The M-30 preamps are not by any means great.

Maybe it would sound nice if I put the drums a little more on the side with the guitar, and the vocals a little more on the bass side. If I ever got really serious about making this sound great I'd probably take it into a studio and try to work all sorts of magic on it, but right now the stuff I listed is all I have.

~James

[Dom Franco]

I'm not up on all of Cool Edit's features... but I bet you could copy the guitar track and paste a replica of it on another track, slightly delaying it or adding on-board effects.... I know Pro Tools will do this. Even just using EQ to effect two identical tracks (LOW'S panned left and HIGH's Panned right) could be effective in creating a "STEREO" Image.

BTW Stereo is mostly a perception not a reality... We have two ears, so when we hear reflections and echos etc. our brain tries to figure out what it is and where we are hearing it .. then this is interpreted as distance, separation, volume etc....

Just my humble oppinion.... I don't want to sound like a "know it all". I have been playing around with this stuff for many years now. "There are no rules" really! And "If it sounds good, it is good"

Dom

[Gidge]

I would record the 4 tracks individually into Cool Edit Pro.....first time thru pan the drums hard left and bass hard right and record it to 2 separate tracks (CEP does this???Ntrack does)....next time thru pan vocal hard left and guitar hard right.....now you have 4 separate tracks...line them up (not easy, but can be done)....clone the guitar track and use dlay on the clone.....use some chorus or something to fatten up the drums...pan the 2 guitars hard left n right.......

[Queue]

Go listen to the first Van Halen album...it's pretty much what you described.

I read an article in the printed Home Recording mag, had a funny narrative mentioning EVH was driving in a car that had only one side of the stereo working. Apparently he called the producers up, just a little upset in the fact that his guitar was completely gone from ALL the songs...

Queue

[CMiller]

That's funny, I've heard that story before too. It's a pretty cool effect for a tune, and it's hard to argue with early VH albums, but as a regular thing I wouldn't like it.